High school puts its eggs in a high-tech basket

St. Gregory hopes new initiative will stem enrollment decline, deficits

March 24, 2010|By Pete Reinwald, Special to the Tribune

Struggling school pins hopes on high tech: St. Gregory the Great High School in Chicago is getting a reprieve with a new technology-based teaching and learning initiative that will start in the fall.

Faced with an enrollment of just 140 students, massive deficits and possible closure, officials of St. Gregory the Great High School are getting a reprieve with a new technology-based teaching and learning initiative that will start in the fall.

The board of the Far North Side school, which has a diverse enrollment that is largely low income, voted last month to pin its hopes on a curriculum based on a national model that emphasizes analytical thinking, problem solving and communication, among other things. Behind the model is the non-profit Partnership for 21st Century Skills, which has programs in place in several states.

St. Gregory hopes that teaching children how to solve real-world problems using technology and by working collaboratively will appeal to new students and bring in more funding. Because of the initiative, teachers must reapply for their jobs, and staff cuts are expected.

"This model opens us up to a deeper level of investment from not only grants but also individuals," said St. Gregory President Tony DeSapio. "It allows our longtime donors to see how what we're doing connects to the future."

At least one other Illinois school, Holy Family Catholic Academy in northwest suburban Inverness, has adopted the initiative. There, middle school children carry Netbooks wherever they go.

"It's actually the future of schools — not maybe," said Emily Alford, a retired former elementary school principal who helped implement the program at Holy Family and who will serve as an adviser at St. Gregory. "This is the direction that schools are heading."

St. Gregory, which opened in 1937 as the first coed school in the Chicago Archdiocese, receives an annual grant from the archdiocese but, like many Catholic schools, has struggled financially in recent years. Sister Mary Paul McCaughey, superintendent of schools for the archdiocese, would not say how much the school will receive for the next school year. The Chicago archdiocese, the country's largest Catholic school system, has 40 high schools.

McCaughey said the archdiocese has had to cover St. Gregory's deficits, including $500,000 this year. Its annual contributions to St. Gregory are "not in alignment with what our per-pupil contribution has been for other of our schools. Just suffice it to say, it's out of whack," she said.

School officials say the cost to educate a student is $12,000 to $13,000 a year. Tuition, which is $7,400 this year, will increase to $7,700 next year, they said. The school provides financial assistance to about 85 percent of its students — an average of about $3,200 per student — and will continue that for returning students, officials said.

The grant from the archdiocese last year represented about 35 percent of the scholarship fund, said DeSapio, and 20 percent to 25 percent comes from The Big Shoulders Fund, which provides $10 million to $12 million a year to Chicago's 93 inner-city Catholic schools.

Partnership for 21st Century Skills provides no funds to schools that implement its initiative, nor is it involved directly with schools or school districts. Rather, it helps states develop a plan based on its framework, President Ken Kay said, adding that the organization is funded by members — organizations and corporations —- that pay a membership fee.

The Illinois State Board of Education announced last June that Illinois had become a "leadership state" in the partnership.

"We are a 21st century partnership state and believe in the 21st century skills … which is more than just learning the content," said board spokesman Matthew Vanover in an e-mail. "Students need to know how to apply what they learn and how it can used in the real world."

For more than 70 years, St. Gregory has hugged the corner of West Bryn Mawr Avenue and North Paulina Street. Students of all races, nationalities and social statuses attend, representing 40 Chicago neighborhoods and 20 countries, officials boast.

"We have students who have never left Chicago, and they're interacting with students from Burma and Iraq and Sudan," said Megan Austin, St. Gregory's development coordinator for communications, alumni and foundation relations. "They know each other, they care about each other and they look out for each other."

"It's like a family to me," said junior Phuong Nguyen, from Vietnam. "My friends and classmates are like sisters and brothers. My teachers are my uncles and my aunts."

Senior Devi Dhital, a native of Bhutan who came to the U.S. recently from Nepal as part of the Catholic Charities Refugee Resettlement Program, thought similarly. "They're pretty much guardians rather than teachers," he said.